Raimondo Lays Out CHIPS Goals

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo laid out the Administration’s goals for revitalizing US production of semiconductor chips to eliminate US dependence on imports.

Current US dependence on imported chips is both an economic and national security concern, she said in a speech to students at Georgetown University.

Those goals will be carried out under the CHIPS Act, an embrace of industrial policy by both the Administration and Congress.

The act allocates $39 billion for manufacturing incentives to encourage US companies to build and expand domestic semiconductor production. Commerce will launch its first application for CHIPS funding, focused on commercial manufacturing facilities, next week.

Ms. Raimondo outlined the goals she hopes to achieve by 2030. First, America will design and produce the world’s most advanced chips domestically. The United States will have at least two new large-scale clusters of leading-edge logic fabs. “Each cluster will include a robust supplier ecosystem, R&D facilities to continuously innovate new process technologies and specialized infrastructure,” she said.

In addition, the United States will develop multiple high-volume advanced packaging facilities and become a global leader in packaging technologies.

US-based fabs also will produce advanced memory chips on economically competitive terms, she said.

“The United States will strategically increase its production capacity for the current-generation and mature-node chips most critical to our economic and national security. These are the chips that go into cars, medical devices, and many of our defense capabilities,” according to Ms. Raimondo.